


Hero

by Dunloth



Category: Naruto
Genre: Chakra seals, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, cursed seal, seals master Kakashi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26972332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dunloth/pseuds/Dunloth
Summary: What if Orochimaru had tried his Cursed Seal on a Konoha shinobi some years before he did it in canon?Iruka is in the right place and time to protect eight-year-old Naruto, but he gets this unexpected gift from the Snake Sannin.Kakashi is good with seals, but is he good enough to save Iruka?
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Comments: 20
Kudos: 97





	Hero

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the Umino Hours Discord Server first anniversary, with the prompt Seals.  
> Big thanks to [callaina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/callaina/pseuds/callaina) for beta reading and encouraging me.

The seal containment room deep down the hospital underground was wide, and dark, except for a bluish glow emanating from the spiderweb of seal characters converging on the center of the room, on a person kneeling on the bare floor, shaking slightly. It was a young man, naked but for a pair of black shorts, his dark hair reaching right past his shoulders.

A chill ran from Kakashi’s neck down his spine when he recognized that person, even if he could only see his backside. He froze right after entering the room. 

“You didn’t tell me it was Iruka-sensei,” he told Tsunade, trying to keep the accusation out of his voice.

“I told you what you needed to know,” she replied, tone dry, standing by him. “A shinobi of Konoha needs your help.” 

A blackbird summons had awoken Kakashi fifteen minutes ago, clicking its beak on Kakashi’s window. “You’re needed in the hospital sealing rooms at once to deal with a cursed seal.” This was all the information he got before racing to his destination in the middle of the night. 

Tsunade received him at the hospital doors and explained Orochimaru had acted again. This time he’d gone for Naruto on the playground by the river, just after most of the other children had been retrieved by their parents to go home before the sun set. Naruto remained there alone. Two Sound nin had been waiting for that. They got the kid and took him over the village wall, to the place where Orochimaru was expecting them. Luckily, a shinobi from Konoha heard Naruto’s cries for help and followed them. 

Now that Kakashi knew Iruka was that shinobi, he pictured Iruka running after the intruders, fighting them and Orochimaru, clearly outmatched, but ready to give his life to protect Naruto. Iruka probably tried to make as much noise and commotion as possible, to attract the attention of one of the wall patrols—that was a fight style that suited Iruka well, a thought that almost brought a smile to Kakashi’s lips.

Iruka’s strategy worked—Orochimaru couldn’t risk to be captured by Konoha, so before the patrols arrived he made an escape with his people, leaving Naruto there. But before fleeing, he did  _ something  _ to Iruka.

It was the cruel Sannin’s style. Kakashi was sure Orochimaru could have killed Iruka easily, but he preferred to try one of his abhorrent experimental techniques on him. After all, it wasn’t easy to get willing subjects to try them on. Kakashi felt his stomach turn.

Orochimaru stabbed Iruka’s back with a tainted senbon imbued with a special preparation of his dark chakra—it was a wound inconspicuous enough to go unnoticed when Iruka went back to Konoha with Naruto in his arms, scared and crying, clutching Iruka’s shirt in his tiny fists.

It wasn’t until the teacher collapsed hours later, after Naruto had calmed and was sleeping at home, with an extra ANBU guard set for the next days, that Iruka was taken to the hospital and the noxious black seal rooted in his back was discovered.

That seal was now exposed to Kakashi’s sight. It was deceivingly small, looking like an innocent tattoo the size of a tangerine, with three black tomoes spun together like three entangled tadpoles—but the evil power contained in it seemed to throb with waves of purple light in the chakra-sensitive atmosphere of this special room.

Kakashi knew it must have been taking all of Iruka’s strength to stand on his knees and not to throw himself to the floor, shivering. He was obviously fighting the seal to avoid it from taking control.

“I haven’t seen this before.” Kakashi admitted to Tsunade, sounding disheartened. 

“I know. I wish Jiraiya was here. He’s our better seals expert.” Tsunade gave a heartfelt sigh. “In his absence, you’ll have to do. I’m not happy to throw this on you, Kakashi, but you’re our only hope to help Iruka-sensei.”

This was the closest to sounding apologetic that Tsunade had been during all the time Kakashi had known her. He appreciated the sentiment, but it wasn’t helping him to feel more confident.

“I’m no seals expert. Minato-sensei started to teach me, but he… We never completed the training.”

Tsunade knew too well why. None of them wanted to elaborate on it.

“And yet, your incomplete training is the best we have. I trust you, Kakashi. You have a way with impossible things.” She placed a confident hand on Kakashi’s arm for a second, and removed it when they started to feel uncomfortable. None of them were prone to showing too much emotion. “Do your best, shinobi.” 

She gave him a cold smile and stepped back to leave him space to work.

Kakashi wasn’t easily scared—he got past that a long time ago, when he was a six-year-old chuunin. But here, with Iruka’s life pending on his next actions, he was terrified.

It was only Kakashi’s usual luck that his lover’s life was now in his hands and he wasn’t sure he could save him.

Kakashi squared his shoulders. He walked to Iruka and kneeled in front of him. 

Iruka didn’t notice Kakashi’s presence, focused as he was on keeping his control. His eyes were tightly closed, his face tense, beads of sweat on his forehead. He was breathing hard, visibly trying not to hyperventilate. His hands were fisted on his thighs.

“Iruka,” Kakashi whispered, not daring to touch him. Iruka startled and opened his eyes, trying to process Kakashi’s presence.

“Ah, Kakashi,” he breathed, and the pain he was trying to keep away filtered into his expression. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—” He winced, unable to keep talking.

Kakashi couldn’t help to reach out and take Iruka’s face in his hands. “Shh, love. It’s okay, it’s going to be okay. Just hold on a little longer, will you?” Iruka’s hands went up to catch hold of Kakashi’s flak jacket. Kakashi kept talking. “I’m going to try to inactivate the seal for now. I don’t think I can remove it, but I’ll contain it until Jiraiya-sama can take a look at it.” 

Iruka nodded. “Do what you need to do,” he managed to say. Kakashi pressed their foreheads together for a second before letting Iruka go. He stood and walked around Iruka, kneeling at his back, taking a close look at the ominous sigil.

Kakashi removed his hitae-ate and left it on the floor. When he opened his sharingan eye, a symphony of chakra patterns and colors exploded around the cursed seal.

Kakashi studied the revealed complex chakra paths, deciding where to modify them, where to reroute them so the chakra circuit was minimized and isolated from the active parts of the seal—the ones that seemed to have some kind of function that Kakashi couldn’t decipher, but was pretty sure needed to be disabled for Iruka’s sake. He tried to design a new path for the chakra that wouldn’t make it dangerously compressed and unstable. The best he could do was to isolate the seal chakra from Iruka’s own, and to force all that dark energy to flow in a sort of hamster wheel, restless but harmless for Iruka. If he did it wrong it could backfire and be very dangerous for Iruka.

Kakashi could only hope he would succeed, because he was not ready to see another important person die because of his failures.

When the new path design was clear in his mind, Kakashi raised his left hand and gathered most of his chakra in it. “Now, Iruka. It will be quick, but it’s going to hurt. Are you ready?”

Iruka nodded twice, unable to speak. His shaking had intensified in the last silent minutes. 

“Here we go,” Kakashi said, and pressed his hand right over the seal. 

A burst of bright white chakra filled the big room, illuminating the high ceiling and the farthest dark corners for a second. The containment seal characters written on the floor around Iruka seemed to move, to crawl towards Iruka, gathering into Kakashi’s hand and Iruka’s seal like a reverse explosion. 

With the chakra spike came an unbearable pain. Iruka tensed and couldn’t hold back a scream, trying not to move, not to come undone. The bare seconds that the seal modification lasted seemed infinite. But, after all, it did end—the bright light died, the seal turned black again, and a new triangular black line appeared around it, like a container barrier surrounding the three tomoes. The seal inactivation was complete.

Iruka passed out, his body going suddenly limp. Kakashi was barely conscious as well after consuming most of his chakra too fast, his vision plagued by black spots, but he managed to catch Iruka in his arms before he could hit the hard floor, and they both slid to lie down, drained.

That’s how Tsunade found them when she entered the room again, Kakashi hugging Iruka, both unconscious on the floor, looking half dead, but with steady and healthy chakra patterns.

“You did it again, brat. I was right to trust you,” she said, although she knew Kakashi couldn’t hear her.

⁂

Iruka woke up in a hospital bed the next morning, but something seemed odd. 

There was someone else in his bed.

And that someone was cuddling him.

“Kakashi,” Iruka whispered, “you’re choking me,” he grunted. When nothing happened, he squirmed, trying to break free from Kakashi’s embrace. 

After some more wiggling from Iruka, Kakashi stirred and started to awaken. He didn’t let Iruka go, but loosened his grip and rearranged it with a satisfied groan.

“How can you sleep so deeply? You used to wake up with the smallest noise.”

“Not today. Today I want to stay here. It’s warm and I can hold you. It’s perfect.” Kakashi nuzzled Iruka’s neck, apparently content with going back to sleep. Iruka had never seen him so relaxed in a hospital before.

Iruka laughed and turned to face Kakashi. The movement made his back throb painfully. He winced and bit back a whimper. 

Kakashi felt his distress and opened his right eye instantly. “Are you okay?” he asked. The playfulness was gone from his voice. 

“Yes, I just have to get used to this damned seal being there. I’ll learn not to mess with it.”

“Yes, you’ll have to.” Kakashi sighed. The mood had been ruined, but he didn’t let Iruka go. Instead, he held him tighter again and pressed a kiss on his cheek. “I was scared, you know? That seal was bad news. I’m sorry I couldn’t remove it completely.”

Iruka paled. “I thought I was going to lose control and the seal would make me do something horrible. I was scared too. But you stopped it, Kakashi.” Iruka’s expression went soft again, and he looked at Kakashi with that caring smile that melted Kakashi’s heart every single time. “You’re my hero.”

If someone would have told Kakashi a couple years ago that he could feel like this, he would have laughed at their naiveté. But here he was, dissolving into a happy pool of warmth just at the way Iruka was looking at him.

“No, you’re the hero here, Iruka, I’m just yours for anything you want.”

A polite cough came from the doorway. “I see you’re feeling better, Iruka. Good, I’ll come back later. Kakashi, let Iruka rest. The room has two beds for a reason.”

Kakashi felt his unmasked face catch fire. He hid under the sheets. “How long have you been there?”

“Not much, only from the ‘My hero’ part.” This time it was Iruka who groaned and blushed to death under the sheets. 

The smile faded out of Tsunade’s voice. “I mean it, Kakashi, Iruka has to rest.” 

“Yes, Tsunade-sama.” Kakashi was too embarrassed to reply with one of his usual quips.

Tsunade turned away and left them to themselves. She smiled as she walked the hospital corridors.

Kakashi let Iruka rest, but he didn’t move to the other bed.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you won't mind that I messed up the timeline, because after finishing the fic I realized that when Naruto was eight Senju Tsunade wasn't Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen was. But I like Tsunade much better, so she stays. If this annoys you, just imagine this is an Alternate Universe.


End file.
